From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Interior Life, Meditation (3)     
      
    Give place, then, to Christ, but deny entrance to all others,    
   for when you have Christ you are rich and He is sufficient for you.   
   He will provide for you. He will supply your every want,    
   so that you need not trust in frail, changeable men. Christ remains forever,    
   standing firmly with us to the end.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Book 2, Chapter 1   
      
      
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   June 12th - Blessed Yolande (Jolenta) of Poland   
    1235-1298   
      
   Yolande was the daughter of Bela IV, king of Hungary. Her mother,   
   Mary, was the daughter of the Greek emperor of Constantinople. In the   
   year 1240, when Yolande was scarcely five years old, she arrived at   
   the court of Poland. Her elder sister, Blessed Kinga (Cunigunda), who   
   was married to the duke of Poland, had asked to supervise the child's   
   education. Under such a mistress, Yolande grew not only in age, but   
   also in virtue and grace before God and men.   
      
   When she arrived at young womanhood, Yolande was married to Boleslaus,   
   the duke of Greater Poland. But the young duchess was not enamored of   
   the glory and pleasure of this world. It was a greater pleasure for   
   her to do good in her elevated position. Like a true sovereign, she   
   came to the assistance of the poor and sick, the widows and the   
   orphans. She and her husband built hospitals, convents, and churches,   
   and she was so great an inspiration to him in everything that was good   
   and pleasing to God, that he received the surname of the Pious.   
      
   But Boleslaus was soon to receive the reward of his piety in heaven.   
   After his death and after two of her daughters were married, Yolande   
   and her third daughter left all the glamour and riches of the world   
   and withdrew to the convent of the Poor Clares at Sandec, where,   
   devoted to prayer and mortification, she led a life entirely hidden in   
   Christ. Disturbances resulting from war compelled her after a time to   
   move to the convent at Gniezno, which she herself, assisted by her   
   last consort, had founded.   
      
   In spite of the reluctance to which her humility prompted her, she was   
   advanced to the position of abbess. So successfully did she guide her   
   sisters by word and by example in the practice of all the religious   
   virtues that the convent flourished like a new garden of God. Even   
   beyond the walls of the cloister she did very much good, so that the   
   fame of the holy abbess spread far and wide.   
      
   But, notwithstanding all her fame, she remained entirely devoted to   
   the interior life, as her vocation required. Her favorite devotion was   
   meditation on the sufferings of Christ, during which the Divine Savior   
   once manifested Himself to her under the appearance of the Crucified.   
   He announced to her that He would soon lead her to glory. Attacked by   
   a serious illness, she asked to receive the last sacraments. Then she   
   admonished her spiritual daughters to persevere in fidelity to the   
   holy rule, and departed blessedly in the Lord in 1298.   
      
   After her death Yolande appeared in wondrous glory, together with St.   
   Stanislaus the bishop, to the sick abbess and restored her health.   
   Many other miracles occurred at her grave down to our own time. Pope   
   Leo XII, in 1827, approved the veneration given to her.   
      
   ON DESPISING THE WORLD   
   1. Consider how happy Yolande was already here on earth, when she left   
   the world and all that it held out to her, to serve God as a Poor   
   Clare. Could the enjoyment of all the pleasures and all the goods of   
   this world ever have brought her such happiness? King Solomon tasted   
   worldly pleasure in its fullness, but it did not make him happy. He   
   says: "And, therefore, I was weary of my life, when I saw that all   
   things under the sun are evil, and all vanity and vexation of spirit"   
   (Eccl 2:17). Did not this duchess make a better choice? Still, what   
   Thomas a Kempis says is true: "For it is not granted to all to forsake   
   all things, to renounce the world, and to assume the monastic life."   
   May you always heed the warning of the Apostle: "And they who use this   
   world as if their hearts become attached to it.--Is your heart   
   attached to this world?   
      
   2. Consider how vain and deceitful the goods of this world are. The   
   honors of the world, on which we expend so much energy, cannot make us   
   better, and sometimes they vanish suddenly without any fault of ours.   
   Its riches cause us so much more anxiety the greater they are. Its   
   pleasures are short, and often missed with much bitterness, as the   
   maxim says: "Many a flower grows smooth and fair, But bitter the root   
   that it doth bear." Have you not experienced this yourself? But, as   
   Thomas a Kempis says: "The world is censured as deceitful and vain;   
   and yet it is with reluctance abandoned, because the concupiscence of   
   the flesh too much prevails. Some things draw us to love the world;   
   others to despise it."--Examine yourself. What is it that holds you to   
   the world, that keeps you from loving God with your whole heart and   
   serving Him?   
      
   3. Consider that our heart should set its goal on something higher if   
   it wishes to despise the world. The heart of man wants to cling to   
   something, yet man was not made for this world and its perishable   
   goods. As Christians we have a higher, a nobler goal, where genuine,   
   imperishable goods await us. That is why the prince of the Apostles   
   says: "Blessed be God, who has regenerated us unto an inheritance   
   incorruptible and undefiled, and that cannot fade, reserved in heaven   
   for you" (1 Pet 1:4)--Direct the desires of your heart to that   
   inheritance. Then it will soon despise the seeming good things of the   
   world.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   It is an abuse to confess any kind of sin, mortal or venial, without a   
   will to be delivered from it, since confession was instituted for no   
   other end.   
   --François de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Or did I commit a fault, humbling myself that you might be exalted,   
   because I preached unto you the Gospel of God freely?  (2 Cor 11:7)   
   DRB   
      
      
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   PRAYER   
      
   Almighty and eternal God, who didst mercifully withdraw Blessed   
   Yolande from honor and riches, and didst graciously inspire her to   
   choose instead the humble cross of Thy Son and the mortification of   
   the flesh, grant, through her intercession and mercies, that we may   
   despise temporal things and with upright hearts seek those that are   
   eternal. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)